


Soft Sweatshirts And Falling Leaves

by silverskyfullofstars



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Asexual Natasha Romanov, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Books, Bucky has my taste in books, Cooking, Cuddling, Early Mornings, M/M, Pansexual Bucky Barnes, Steve's morning runs, fall - Freeform, good friends good books good socks, good morning kisses, honestly I gave them the ideal life in this, paintings, pride socks, pride sweatshirts, pride t-shirts, soft pansexual bucky barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 20:58:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16126607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverskyfullofstars/pseuds/silverskyfullofstars
Summary: Mornings in fall, Steve-and-Bucky style.





	1. Autumn Love

**Author's Note:**

> Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/silverstars17/playlist/3TQEUnLji7cFmyBp6WzoFf?si=ZvVEz62QQIGmHu5sEb5M3Q

In fall, the days are cool, with bright sun drifting through the changing leaves. They crunch under Steve’s sneakers as he runs, the breeze shifting them around and biting at his arms and legs through his light hoodie and athletic shorts. His feet pound on the sidewalk, audible in the still, silent park.

 

Early morning fog still curls around the tops of the trees as he makes his way home, key clicking in the front door lock. He toes his shoes off, sliding them into the rack by the door, and pads softly into the kitchen in socked feet. He takes a water bottle from the fridge and takes a drink, cool water calming him with each sip.

 

He puts the half-empty bottle back in the fridge and turns towards the sofa. Bucky is curled up in the corner, book in hand and cocooned in a giant fuzzy sweatshirt in thick stripes of pink, yellow, and blue. His socks, wedged under a pillow, are matching. His hair is in a loose bun, strands falling out and draping against his face, still soft from recent sleep.

 

Bucky looks up from his well-worn copy of  _ The Hobbit _ . “Hey, Stevie,” he says, so soft it’s almost a whisper. His smile is soft too, warm and sweet when Steve crosses the room and leans over the back of the sofa to kiss him.

“Hey, Buck. Sleep well?”

Bucky shifts in his seat, right hand reaching for the lemon tea on the side table and left twining between Steve’s fingers. “Mmm. Good, last night, but I woke up a few minutes after you left for your run. Bed was still warm.”

“You weren’t too cold, were you?” Steve looks worried for a moment, always concerned with accidentally triggering old memories.

“No,” Bucky reassures him. “That’s what I have my sweater for.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re comfortable in it.”

 

Bucky’s sweater was a birthday gift from Steve, recommended and located by Natasha. When Bucky had come out to her after New Year’s, she had showed him the wide range of pride merch online, and he’d expressed interest in the sweatshirts she’d found on an Etsy page. 

 

By the time March rolled around, Natasha was hanging around their house in a zip-up ace flag hoodie, and Steve was placing an order online. Natasha had taken the easy way out, gifting him a box set of Madeleine L’Engle books and a pair of pansexual flag socks. Sam got him  _ The Invention of Hugo Cabret _ ,  _ Wonderstruck _ , and  _ The Marvels _ by Brian Selznick, and Clint had gotten him constellation-patterned knee socks and a Starbucks gift card. All of those had been great gift, but Bucky’s face had lit up when he saw the sweater next to a stack of classic sci-fi novels.

 

Now, he wears it almost constantly, and Steve smiles to himself as he kisses Bucky’s cheek and slips upstairs to shower and change. He comes downstairs twenty minutes later, in grey sweatpants and a shirt that declares  _ IF YOU PLAY FOR BOTH TEAMS YOU’LL ALWAYS WIN _ . Bucky laughs a bit when Steve turns towards him, and pulls him in to cuddle.

 

“Good run?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Steve replies after a moment. “The leaves are falling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I envisioned Bucky’s sweatshirt being like this one, but without a zipper and with one giant front pocket. https://www.etsy.com/listing/598229006/pansexual-flag-pride-hoodie 
> 
> Bucky’s socks: https://www.etsy.com/listing/635961547/pansexual-pride-gay-pride-socks-lgbt 
> 
> Nat’s sweater: https://www.etsy.com/listing/612071891/asexual-pride-flag-hoodie 
> 
> Time Quintet: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312373511/ 
> 
> Sam’s gifts: https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Hugo-Cabret-Brian-Selznick/dp/0439813786, https://www.amazon.com/Wonderstruck-Schneider-Family-Book-Award/dp/0545027896, https://www.amazon.com/Marvels-Brian-Selznick/dp/0545448689 
> 
> Constellation socks: https://www.amazon.com/Sock-Me-Constellations-Womens-Knee-High/dp/B00CMDWUIS (yes, I’m aware they’re women’s socks but these are my favorite socks so deal with it)
> 
> Steve’s shirt: https://www.etsy.com/listing/611950508/if-you-play-for-both-teams-youll-always 
> 
> I got carried away googling, but this all started because of that pan flag sweatshirt!


	2. Of Clouds

In fall, the clouds are everywhere.

 

The first ones Bucky sees each morning are the low-hanging layers of fog, curling around the trees outside the bedroom window as he watches Steve leave for his morning run. The blankets are fluffy and soft around him, still warm even on the other side of the bed. He snuggles in for another ten minutes, sinking into the cozy feeling of safety.

 

The next clouds are small - tendrils of near-invisible steam rising from his newly-made cup of tea. He could have had hot chocolate, but he finds it better in winter, maybe late fall at the earliest. Tea is an autumn drink, and the lemon-scented steam is as calming as the slowly swirling fog.

 

The morning sun tries valiantly to shine through the grey clouds as Bucky curls up on the sofa to read. He’s read  _ The Hobbit _ a thousand times, but it’s never lost the amazing feeling of being swept into another world. He can almost see the pictures in front of him, and he wonders if there are movies to go with them. Probably - Natasha would know. She preferred slightly different books than he did (he tried, but he would never quite like Sarah J. Maas as much as Tolkien), but the general genre of fantasy was a safe haven for both of them.

 

The door opens, and Steve comes in from his morning run. Bucky looks up from his book.  “Hey, Stevie,” he says. 

“Hey, Buck. Sleep well?”

Bucky grabs for his tea with one hand and Steve’s fingers with the other, weaving them together. “Mmm. Good, last night, but I woke up a few minutes after you left for your run. Bed was still warm.”

“You weren’t too cold, were you?” Bucky hated being cold, but Steve ran hot, and the blankets held the warmth for more time than Bucky had initially expected.

“No,” Bucky says quickly, recognizing the worried look on Steve’s face, “That’s what I have my sweater for.” It was a good sweater, fuzzy on the inside and colored in bright bands of pink, yellow and blue - a soft pan sweater for a soft pan, Nat had joked once.

“Good. I’m glad you’re comfortable in it.”

 

Steve kissed his cheek before going upstairs, and Bucky resisted the urge to lean into it. He heard the shower start up a few minutes after Steve left, and he could imagine the clouds of steam filling the bathroom and fogging up the mirror. Bucky preferred baths, but both he and Steve had a habit of running the water hot enough to turn their skin red and fog up every surface in the bathroom, and a repeated prank was opening the door just in time for an unfortunate Steve to catch a faceful of floral-scented steam.

 

Bucky smiled at the memory, marking his page as Steve came back downstairs, dressed in softer clothes. Cuddling clothes. Good. He pulled Steve onto the sofa, wrapping his arms around him and tucking his head under Steve’s chin.

 

“Good run?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Steve replies after a moment. “The leaves are falling.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, me writing relatively reliably? It's like spotting a cryptid!  
> I'll try to update this as often as I can, but it probably won't be on a regular schedule. Happy reading!


	3. Orange In Oil

In the early morning, he paints the dawn. It stretches lazily across the sky in fields of pink, orange, and yellow, blurring over the faint blue of night-nearly-day. He mixes his paints in soft circles, slow and sleepy like the drowsy sun and the drowsy Bucky still dozing in bed. There are no people in this painting, but he sees Bucky in every stroke across the canvas. The pink of his lips, the blue of his eyes, the gold of sunlight bouncing off his dark brown hair, giving it a metallic shine. The curve of the sun is the curve of his smile, and Steve’s joy in his work is the joy of love.

 

At noon, he paints the skyline, split in half like a break in memory. New Brooklyn is blue and brown and silver and grey, framed by intense blue. Old Brooklyn is shorter, smaller, brown and brick with less of the silver and grey. It is still framed by blue, but faded with the force of time. They come together in the middle, old and new separated by a shimmering fold of white. It hides so much - a war, a fall, a plane, an awakening. Old is home, love, family and familiar streets his shoes know the feeling of even now. But new is also home, with the love of friends-like-family and a love Old Brooklyn would never have let him have. Old Brooklyn had a friendship that stood the test of time, but New Brooklyn has a love to last ’til the end of the line.

 

In the afternoon, he paints the trees. They glow like flames, red and orange and yellow shot through with pale green. The brown leaves crackle underfoot like withered dreams that never die. The trees are old and strong, standing tall as they have for a century. They are kin, in a way. Constant in their existence, planted in their ways. They reach up to the sun, searching for light. They bend in the wind, but they do not fall. Their roots stretch deep into the earth, withstanding the test of time. They are beautiful - which he is learning to feel about himself.

 

In the evening, he paints the sunset. It glows in shades of red and orange and pink and yellow and blue, a blurred rainbow of color stretching over the sky like a warm blanket. The color bleeds into the kitchen like watercolor, washing over the two of them like warm ocean waves. It colors Bucky’s eyes, his hair, his face, his humming as he cooks. Steve smiles from his easel. The room smells like olive oil and basil and sunset, and life is slow and sweet.

 

At night, he paints Bucky. Smiling from the living room, crinkles around his eyes. Lit by firelight, the side of his face glowing a soft orange. Strands of hair escape his loose ponytail, falling over his eyes as he flops onto the couch. The stars are in his eyes, his fingertips, Steve’s shield on his shoulder. Stars once held so much expectation and pain, but now they are bright spots. Love letters. Steve’s paintings are love letters too, he realizes, and maybe one day he will turn these love letters for this gold-and-silver man with stars in his face into a question. He doesn’t worry about an answer. Bucky’s smile is answer enough.


End file.
